Great guesses everyone made on my last post and a couple of you were even bang on with your answers!
In this particular situation I was organizing a kitchen cabinet for my girlfriend so we needed to consider how she uses her space and organize accordingly. We all use our kitchens differently and it’s important that you set it up for what works best for you and not some ideal of what you think you have to live up to.
This is my girlfriend’s cabinet before:
It is her tea/beverage/baking/spices cabinet. Keep in mind she has a very small kitchen with limited cabinet space so she really needed to make the most of every inch possible.
We started by taking absolutely everything out of the cabinet. When we could see everything in front of us it was quick and easy to sort “like with like” and when I say that I mean all the tea together, all the spices together and all the baking supplies together. We needed to get a feel for exactly what we were dealing with. It was during this process that I found the basket gone bad way back there in the corner.
Those are just my friend’s overstock spices. To save money she buys the bags of spices and refills her jars as needed. In other words she doesn’t use these bags regularly and yet there they were taking up prime real estate on the first shelf. We went through and consolidated any duplicates but for the most part she just has a lot of spices….and she uses them all…I totally grilled her on it 🙂 So considering that, I suggested we move up to a bigger container so she would no longer have spices spilling out everywhere. My other suggestion was to relocate the extra spices to a higher shelf and just leave the jars of spices that she does use regularly on the bottom shelf.
Next we worked with all the tea boxes. Boxes take up a lot of additional space so we got rid of the boxes and combined all the packaged tea bags into a shallow container. Now when she wants to find a tea to drink she only needs to pull out the one container to look through (this is very similar to my tea station). As my girlfriend drinks quite a bit of tea throughout the day it made sense to create her a beverage station, where it was easily accessible, on the bottom shelf on the left hand side.
I then added a wire shelf on the middle shelf to give us some much needed “extra” space. I love these wire racks. They just make so much sense in kitchen cabinets. You can literally double your storage space. I use them in my own kitchen cupboard for my dishes.
My girlfriend had all the small baking type stuff (food coloring, sprinkles, muffin liners, icing tubes, extracts, etc) scattered throughout the three shelves. We corralled all of these things into one basket to make it totally efficient for her to just pull out the basket when she’s baking and have everything right there at her fingertips. So great!
As a reminder here is what it looked like before:
And here is what her cabinet looked like when we were finished:
All of the baskets I used were just the inexpensive dollar store variety. I love how many shapes and sizes they come in making them super versatile for a project such as this.
So there you have it, a wonderfully fun way to spend a Saturday night 🙂
Don’t forget I’ll be putting up Mr. Linky, for Org Junkie’s Monthly Round-Up ~ Filing Cabinet Edition, tomorrow. Are you ready with your before and after pictures?
Related posts:
Melissa says
This is such a great idea! I am going to have to invest in some baskets, because all of my spices and baking things are just always in the way, and it makes it hard to get other things out of my cabinets. Thank you.
Sarah says
This is very inspiring. I also think I’ll invest in baskets. I’m rather new to your blog and have a question you may have already addressed.
Do you have any suggestions for corner cabinets? We do not have ‘lazy susan’ type, rather, the kind that extend back into the depths of the corner – both lower and upper. I’m tall so reaching things isn’t a problem. I just don’t like having to take things out of the front to reach what’s in back.
Laura says
Hi Sarah, I’ve updated the post to include a link to how I dealt with my own corner cabinets. Hope that helps!
Laura
Joyce says
When I was on maternity leave with my 1st I scanned and shredded a lot of old papers that I had. So our file cabinet doesn’t need too much work. Can’t wait to participate in next month’s round-up. I need it. My Betty Crocker cookbook is spewing with recipes on post-its. The cabinet looks great!
Alison says
This is a great post, thanks! My pantry cupboard pretty much looks like the before picture, except we have 9 foot ceilings and my cabinets go as high! I can use all the organizing tips I can get. I also have the corner cupboard that goes waaay back. I can’t wait to get re-organizing!
Debbie says
Hahaha, I was laughing…I actually get giddy seeing your organizing ideas and what you do. I love looking at pantry’s too! Oh my! I am in the mood for all this organizing! Great post.
Debbie
Elizabeth says
Yay! I recently organized my pantry, too. Those wire racks are so great!
Mom of Faith says
When are you coming to organize my HOUSE? All of it? =) I need it SO bad. Christmas happened and I just haven’t been able to rehab since then. Sigh.
The cabinet looks great though!
Shelly says
When you get done with Mom of Faith’s house, you can come to mine. I’m in the same predicament as she is. Christmas happened and there’s no getting the house back!
My cabinets look a lot like the before shots as well. I think it will take more than wire racks and baskets to help mine! LOL
~Shelly~
Serene Journey says
That looks awesome! I’m sure finding what you’re looking for will be much quicker and easier now. Great job!
susieshomemade says
That’s a great makeover:-)
Birgitte says
I just wanted to say THANK YOU for inspiring me to organize instead of panicking and freezing. I went to the thrift store today and bought a ton of plastic baskets and storage containers and tonight I organized two cupboards. And it feels GREAT!
Sandy says
awesome – i love dollar store baskets! 🙂
Everything Mom says
WOW! That looks great. I too love the wire racks that lift so much off the floor of the shelf. Great job girl!!
Christie Jarvis says
I just discovered you a few days ago and just wanted to let you know that I LOVE you! I am crazy about organizing stuff and am always looking for new ideas. I have never thought about using baskets in the pantry! What a simple, yet amazing idea!! Thank you so much for sharing!!
Blissful Babe says
Are you available to come to my house next week with your dollar store baskets? I have more than just a kitchen to work with. :p
Way to organize!
Kris Berry says
You just inspired me to do my spice cabinet! It’s been needing it for some time…now it has nice baskets and a tea station! Thank you for your blog, I love it and it’s really helping me become more organized, which is a necessity!
Candace (Mama Mia) says
Very impressive! I need to redo my spice/baking/tea/canned goods cabinet. I don’t have very much cabinet space- and no pantry! You’ve inspired redo mine.
Betty says
Were you not able to get all the baskets the same color? Or were the different colors used for a reason? I have a lot of tea also and on my list of things to buy from the Container store is a clear plastic tea bag box to store all the teas. You’re right, leaving the tea bags in their original boxes does take up a lot of room. Somebody gave me a box of tea bags all different flavors in a nice leather like box. How long would those teabags be good for? I need to get one of my grandchildren over here to help me change some things around on the turntable cabinets. I need to store my clear pyrex dishes in an area that would be easier to get to and that carosell would be a perfect place. I can’t get down on the floor to do that. Get down and hard to get up.
Rebecca says
This is great! I have way more spices than that, but I saw a neat tip in a magazine about doing a basket for each type of spices (baking spices, Indian spices, Mexican spices, etc) and I am thinking of trying that. Or maybe a basket for certain letters… A-C in this basket, etc.
I would love to know if you have any ideas for organizing tea that doesn’t come in labelled bags… I buy a lot of Celestial Seasonings herbal tea which is just in plain bags, so I can’t just throw them into the jar I use for tea bags.
sue says
my cabinet looks exactly like your friend’s before–same size and contents! i’m looking forward to getting it in order for once. thanks for posting this!
Fia says
Thanks for the great tips! Your girlfriend’s “before” kitchen cabinet reminds me a lot of my sister’s cabinet; it’s very disorganized. I have yet to tell her to buy those inexpensive baskets and maybe other kitchen organizers to help her achieve a more orderly kitchen.
oweklalse says
I’m the only one in this world. Can please someone join me in this life? Or maybe death…